August 24, 2010

Gathering

My door hanging is in honor of all the squirrels who run up and down my fence. They are busy gathering nuts, chatting with anyone who will listen and teasing my dog Lucky!

Here are a few quilts I finished a couple weeks ago before heading to Mt. Hood

I started this baby quilt with zebra striped Minky for the backing. I've never had this happen before and have done quite a few quilts with Minky. For some reason, this particular Mincky was pulling up through the top of the quilt. I replaced my needle, lengthened my stitch length and continued to stitch with no success! I met my client Cathy at Craft Warehouse and they were kind enough to allow her to replace this backing with another Minky fabric. Yes, I had to pick all this out....ugh

The new fabric choice was no problem at all....

This is Susan's baby quilt....she used a red Minky on her back...no problem

I wish the pictures of Susan's quilt were more true to color....the fabrics were much prettier than I am showing.

This is a postage stamp quilt made by Sharon.

It's 94"x94"

Sharon asked that I make and sew the binding on her quilt

Here are a few pictures of how to seam your binding instead of tucking one end inside the other to complete this process.

Both ending strips of your binding should not be angled or turned under. Leave an un-stitched tail of approximately 12" when you begin sewing the binding to your quilt. Stop about 16" from where you started sewing the binding. Now you have two un-stitched ends that can be maneuvered. I always take a few back stitches when starting and stopping.

Next you will take your quilt to your cutting mat.

Add the cut width of your binding strip (usually 2-1/2" or 2 1/4") to your ending tail. Laying your ending tail on top of your starting tail and with raw edges together, draw a line across your ending tail where you have added your cut binding width and cut.

Open both tails and and place them rights sides together at a 90* angle. Mark diagonally and pin. I always open the seam at this point before stitching to make sure I have done this correctly. You will know if you haven't!

After this is stitched together, trim the seam to a 1/4", press open.

Refold the binding and press. Stitch to quilt.

This is Alex Anderson's book Finish It. I am referring to this book constantly as I have in this post.

I highly recommend it.

On a really really fun note....I started an online class yesterday called Feathered Boot Camp. It will be a daily class for the next 5 weeks. I will post my progress...soooo excited!!